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All prayers welcome here, unless it is one of those terrible tower curses.

Let's start with the facts:

Brady got pummelled by "Super Fat Albert" in the play we all dreaded. Of course, our diabolical nightmares filmed a shot with Haynesworth's helmet crushing Brady's repaired knee.

Brady got to the sidelines and began rotating his shoulder. He also continued to warm up. No other quarterbacks were warming, so TB probably would have played another drive had the Pats' retained possession before halftime. I wonder if this would have even been a story if Brady hadn't flexed his arms on the sideline... After halftime, Brady returned to the field, spoke to the team doctor, and disappeared. One source indicated he stayed with the team on the sidelines; this was not confirmed.

The Patriots made a surprise announcement Brady had a "sore shoulder." This a rare response from a team who usually says "no comment." Could be read many ways. Perhaps Brady is hurt, and BB wanted an advantage. Or perhaps he did not want to the distraction endless speculation by his players and staff, and "played it straight" for once, as good bluffers know that once in a while you need to play it straight to keep your opponent guessing.

BB's press conference shed little light, but he did indicate (if we are to believe him) that he wanted to see the backups. This would make sense since the Pats' offense were cruising.. Preseason complicates everything; in a regular season game, there would be much more anxiety if TB did not return to a 17-17 game. Let me add: Jason Campbell only played on series in the third quarter.

Post-Game The Aftermath... OPTIMISM

Chicken Little overtook the souls of about 8M NFL followers last night. Chad Pennington, Drew Brees, Rich Gannon... all of these devastating hits were brought up. In all those cases we saw a lot of pain, immediate injuries, and stretchers. Torn labrum, separated shoulder, broken shoulder, torn rotator's cuff.

Five Major Sources have suggested Brady's injury is minor

Source 1: Who stands to gain or lose the most from Brady's status? Hint, it's not the Steelers. Hint, it's not the Patriots. It Vegas, stupid. With a billion dollar industry, they have the best insiders in the nation. Within seconds of an injured star player, they pull down their lines until more information is available so the "wise guys" don't bankrupt them. Since last night the Patriots are still -10.5 over Buffalo, 2.1 to win the AFC, and 11.5 o/u. There has been no movement. According to Vegas' super handicappers, there is no change in the dominant outlook of this team. You may recall last season they dropped from 12.5 to 9 wins after Brady went down. I'll leave it at this, if Vegas were sure Brady had a serious injury, they would adjust the lines. If could not receive the information they wanted, the lines would be taken offline until further information. If they were sure Brady was okay, there would be no line change. There is no line change. This is the best argument for Brady's health right now

Source 2: According to Gasper: A source close to the team said "there is no need for hysteria" regarding Tom Brady's right shoulder and that the shoulder is sore but it appears Brady will be fine.
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The source said that there shouldn't be a lot of angst about Brady's health as the sore shoulder plays itself out, saying "there are not any concerns" at this time.

Source 3. Chad Ochocinco twittered that Tom Brady just returned my phone call and says he is fine. This post was specious at best, but Chad continued to defend it against NFL reporters. COC may be weird, but has he ever been known as a liar? He says a lot of things, but he seems unlikely to throw out something as big as this, if he had no information. Chad is also good friends with Brady and Belichick. Again, it would be a strange lie. Let's be optimistic here.

Source 4. Dr. Neal el-Attrache, Brady's doctor, could only comment on what he saw on television:

‚ÄúThe good signs were that he was moving it right afterwards,‚ÄĚ said ElAttrache, who spoke to Brady after the game Friday night, but declined to give any specifics on what his condition might be.

‚ÄúSore shoulder‚ÄĚ was the team‚Äôs official diagnosis.

‚ÄúNo one had to do any sort of maneuver or manipulation to help his should feel better, which would indicate there was no dislocation or anything like that,‚ÄĚ ElAttrache said. ‚ÄúBut really the next day and further tests tell the story, and how the player feels in the upcoming days. I don‚Äôt know right now if I can add much more than that.‚ÄĚ

"You don't like to see a 350-pound guy falling on your quarterback's shoulder, but when he went down his arm actually was over his head," said Bell, a physical therapist who specializes in sports injuries. "You worry when a quarterback lands on the point of his shoulder. That's usually how you end up separating your shoulder. He didn't go down like that.

"You do worry in Brady's case that you could pinch all the structures in the top of your shoulder, most notably your rotator cuff and the labrum. My suspicion, based on that, is he probably did a bruising number on his rotator cuff."

The Patriots, sticking to their policy, haven't provided any details about Brady's injury. He was expected to have an imaging scan done Saturday.
Brady didn't return to the game after the hit. He walked off the field, sat down on the bench and winded his arm forcefully. He warmed up after halftime but went back into the locker room after some tosses.

"He's able to lift his arm up at least 90 degrees," Bell said. "That's one of the things we look for to see if your rotator cuff is attached. If he had a major tear, he wouldn't be able to lift his arm that high. Him moving it around and trying to work it out is a good sign.
"But, again, we don't know the extent of it. This is speculation. Every so often, you see a guy tear his ACL and walk off the field. Sometimes what you see can fool you.

How about ..... he was picked up by a teammate by that arm ..... i mean really who would offer their arm if they were in excrutiating pain?

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Brady

He's got the pain threshold of Godzilla. How many players that sustain season ending injuries have you seen walk off the field and into the locker room unassisted? After missing 2008 the last thing he wants is to let the football world think he's hurt and I'm confident that he would put up with a great deal of pain to pull that off. If there was any way to fake an MRI Brady would figure it out. I do think he's fine, but really hope he sets up Prisco again later in the season.

I've seen so much speculation on this board about torn rotator, labrum, separated shoulder, blah blah blah. No one here knows the extent of the "injury" if there even is one. I wish more people would stop getting so worked up about this when there is no solid information on this yet. Chill out and let's cross that bridge when we get there. Man!

How about ..... he was picked up by a teammate by that arm ..... i mean really who would offer their arm if they were in excrutiating pain?

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also...in the same series.... before the hit Brady was yelling at Fred Taylor (most likely for running a pass rout wrong). After the hit, and after Brady went to the bench....he tapped the bench with his right arm to get Fred to come and sit next to him. If it were a serious shoulder injury, not only would he not make that motion, but he wouldn't be concerned with getting on the same page with Taylor (at that moment).